


and i'm hoping that you'll stay

by beware_of_you



Series: only love [14]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/F, Henry has some kick as light up sneakers, Henry is an innocent baby boi, Hotch has to go all dad on Reid, Reid is super sad, ReidxTherapy the perfect ship, and honestly i ship reid with fucking therapy bc jesus christ, and trust issues, and uncle derek corrupts him, but its justified, emily is a soft gf, he has daddy issues, he honestly cannot get enough of them, he's just a sad boi guys, jj goes into protective mom mode, she and Reid have the cutest sibling relationship ever i swear, she's great tbh, thanks a lot MORGAN, yes it takes Reid longer to forgive both Emily and JJ in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beware_of_you/pseuds/beware_of_you
Summary: jj and emily finally have a talk with morgan and reid
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Series: only love [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838533
Comments: 2
Kudos: 79





	and i'm hoping that you'll stay

It takes Derek a few days to speak to either of them again.

Emily and Henry are picking JJ up from the headquarters, sitting in the parking lot while _Dreams_ plays through the car's speakers. The sight of them brings a genuine smile to the blonde's face for the first time in a long time, warmth spreading through her limbs at the thought of spending the night with the two people she loves the most in the world.

"JJ."

She turns briefly to Derek, stopping and letting the man jog up to her.

"Can we talk?" he asks softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

She just nods in reply.

"Hi, Uncle Derek!" Henry calls out from the backseat when he sees the older man. He looks up from his light up shoes (even if they're _really_ interesting), waving at the man with a big smile.

Derek smiles softly in response as he stops by the driver's side window. "Hey, Henry! Cool shoes."

Henry clicks his sneakers together excitedly, beaming at the praise. "Thanks!"

Derek shoots the young boy one more smile before he turns to look at the women. His expression is a mix of emotions JJ can't really decipher, but it makes her heart clench all the same. He looks over across the parking lot, tearing his face away from them. "You guys could have told me," he starts lowly. "I could have helped."

"You know we couldn't have," JJ replies just as softly. "It was the only way to keep everyone safe."

He nods stiffly, kicking at the pavement beneath his feet. He watches a pebble skip across the parking space, land just before it teeters over the edge of the garage. "I watched you—" He swallows hard. "I held your hand when you..."

Emily reaches out the window a rests a hand on his arm. "I know. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been on you to do that."

"It was hard."

Emily nods sympathetically, eyebrow furrowing. "I'm sorry."

He doesn't respond right away, carefully nudging another pebble with his shoe. "I'm not mad," he finally decides. "How can I be mad at you when you're back?"

JJ releases a breath she didn't even know she had been holding, smiling over at the two in relief.

"Really?" Emily squeaks out.

Derek finally smiles again, shaking his head with a chuckle. "Of course I'm not, princess." He leans against the window.

"You carried my co—" Emily cuts herself off, catching herself before Henry picks up on anything.

Derek smirks in disbelief. "I did." He peeks around Emily to look at JJ. "What the hell was even in that thing, anyway?"

"Rocks," JJ deadpans with a smirk of her own. "Lots of rocks."

"Good to know," Emily scoffs with an amused chuckle.

"When am I getting my partner in crime back?" Derek asks.

"As soon as she passes a self defense course," JJ answers for Emily, who scowls slightly at the response.

"What?"

"It would make us both feel better, princess," Derek grins.

"And you have no choice if you want someone to keep your bed warm at night," JJ adds, playfully elbowing the older woman in the side.

Derek guffaws in amusement. "Damn, three days back and she's already threatening to leave you high and dry. That's cold, Jareau."

Emily makes a face at his teasing, grumbling under her breath. Her tiny smile lets them both know that she's not really angry. "Okay, fine. I'll take the stupid self defense class. But only because it'll make you two feel better."

"It will," JJ confirms, leaning over and pressing a brief kiss to her cheek.

Derek snorts. "Or because you're completely p-whipped."

"What's p-whipped mean, Uncle Derek?" Henry immediately pipes up from the back seat in confusion.

JJ sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers while Emily barely manages to cover up her laugh with a cough.

Derek grins at the two women in response, leaning in and ruffling Henry's hair playfully. "Nothing you need to worry about for a long time, okay, little man?"

Henry shrugs in his carseat. "Okay," he says as if the answer was sufficient enough, going back to staring at his shoes. He clicks them together again, transfixed on the sneakers as they flash green and blue lights.

"You guys have a good night," Derek says as a departure, stepping back from the SUV and giving them all a short wave.

"You do the same, Derek," Emily responds softly.

"Come over anytime you want to watch another game," JJ offers.

Derek grins. "I might just take you up on that one, JJ." With one final wave, he heads to his own car, leaving the two women feeling much lighter as they drive home to spend the evening together.

Spencer doesn't talk to them for a few weeks (by this point, Emily had joined the team once again and was settling back into her role as a profiler.)

He ignores them, doesn't speak to them unless he has to. He doesn't stay any later at the office, declines every offer either of them make to hang out, comes up with excuse after excuse on the spot before brushing past them to his desk. Sometimes, he flat out gives them the cold shoulder and doesn't speak at all.

(Once, he even snaps at Emily in the middle of a flight out to Little Rock for their next case. Hotch pulls him aside as soon as the jet lands and by the time either woman sees him again, his eyes are clouded over and his shoulders are haunched. He begrudgingly mutters an apology to Emily, who accepts with a wary nod.

He doesn't speak with them for the remainder of the case.)

"I just don't know how to get through to him," JJ says to Emily, nearly in tears due to the man's actions over the course of a few weeks. "I know he's allowed to be hurting over this, but _this_ sucks!" She sighs heavily, flopping her face down onto her arms.

Emily rests a hand supportively on her back. "I'll go talk with him," she murmurs gently, kneeling down beside JJ's chair. She moves her hand from the other woman's back to her hair, soothingly running through soft, golden locks.

The blonde lifts her head up slightly, leaning into the feeling. "I just want my best friend to talk to me again," she whispers sadly. "I can't fix anything if he refuses to talk with me."

Emily presses a kiss to her forehead. "I'll talk to him," she promises again, more firm this time. "I'll have Penelope lock us together in the conference room if it comes down to it."

"I can't ask you to do that for me."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not asking. I'm offering," Emily murmurs. "Insisting on it," she corrects herself. "It's really starting to stress you out. Let me help."

JJ stays silent for a long time, resting her cheek on her arm. "I love you, you know that?"

The older woman cracks a smile. "And I love you," she replies softly, leaning over and kissing the blonde's nose, eyes lighting up in delight when her face scrunches adorably as a result.

JJ's nose wiggles, bright smile on her face at Emily's words. She sits up in her chair, smoothing back her hair gently. "Thank you," she murmurs sincerely. "You really don't have to do this. He's just as pissed off at you."

"For you, I'd do anything," the brunette swears, placing a hand over her heart.

Placing a hand under her chin and fingers tapping against the wooden table rhythmically, the younger woman grins. "Including filling out your case report from Seattle that's due on Hotch's desk at noon?" she asks innocently, batting her eyelashes as she slides the other woman the folder.

Emily groans playfully, swiping the folder off her desk. "That's not even remotely fair," she grumbles with a scowl. She bends down, placing one more kiss on top the blonde's head. "Hey, don't worry about Reid, okay? We'll work this out."

"We will," JJ hums in content.

Emily flashes her one more smile as she heads for the door. "That's my girl."

She stares out after the older woman for a few seconds longer, small, adoring smile on her face before she shakes her head and immerses herself in her work.   
Even though she's trained as a profiler and is ranked as such, the case files the team will possibly investigate still come across her desk. She's the only one really well trained to know exactly what cases to pick out (though, from what Penelope told her, the technical analyst is being trained on the side to pick out the cases for the team.)

For now, though, JJ's still tasked with the job.

She doesn't mind it much. She knows what she's doing, knows how to pick out the most urgent cases from the hundreds that come across her desk each week. She stacks them off in a pile to the side of her desk, ready to send off to Hotch so they can get approved. She thinks she's definitely gotten a lot better at the job since passing the profiler's test with flying colors. Certain things stand out to her a lot more prominently than they did before, draw her attention to cases with more at risk victims.

It's tiring, exhausting work, but she's gotten a pretty good handle on it after doing it for so long.

It's near lunchtime when someone knocks on her door.

She blinks heavily down at the folder she's looking over (a string of missing hikers that had just been discovered in remote woods near Yellowstone, each with some form of blunt force head trauma, a definite case for the most urgent pile). She slides the folder and sets it neatly on top of the small pile already there, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Come in," she calls out softly, expecting Emily to be there to come collect her for lunch.

She nearly falls from her chair when she sees Spence standing there instead.

They stare at each other for a long time, the only sound JJ swears she hears is her own heartbeat racing in her ears, that stupid clock hanging up just above the doorway she should really ask Derek to remove because the insistent ticking drives her _crazy._ Now, each passing tick feels like ice in her veins, only seems to heighten her anxiety as the silence continues on, and on, and on—

"Can I come in?" Spencer finally asks softly.

JJ nods mutely, gesturing to the chair situated just in front of her desk.

Spencer comes in, carefully shutting the door behind him but opts to stand, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looks around at the walls of her office, at the shadow boxes with different butterflies stacked neatly on the bookshelf. He reaches up, moves his unruly curls from his forehead (the move is fruitless, as the same clump of hair just falls right back in place.) "My dad left my mom and I at a young age."

He pauses, seems to think better of his word choice before he corrects himself. "Abandoned." He stuffs his hand right back in his pocket. "For the longest time, it was just me and my mom. She was the only person I really trusted until I joined the BAU."

He looks up at the lights in the ceiling (they're off, JJ uses only a desk lamp to keep her office lit). Spencer blinks hard up at the unlit bulbs, throat bobbing harshly with the force he swallows. "Gideon sort of became a father figure of sorts. He took me under his guidance, taught me how to work in this field and molded me into a pretty successful profiler in just a few months. But he left, too. Just like my father."

He struggles to keep his voice steady, clearing his throat with a cough he covers up in the crease of his elbow. His voice is small when he speaks next, sounding impossibly young and vulnerable. "So, when Emily..." He struggles to say the word, gives up after a few futile attempts.

"It was like Gideon and my dad all over again." He uses the toe of his Converse to dig at her rug. "People that are important to me always seem to leave me once I let them in."

JJ's eyes soften, her eyes burning with tears. "Spence..."

"I know why you did what you did, and what would have happened if you didn't, but it still hurt. A lot," he admits thickly. "And I didn't know how to deal with it. I still don't."

He looks down at his shoes, the white toe making a small divot in the rug that he covers back with the same material before starting the routine over again. "I'm scared of letting you two get close again because I'm afraid I'll lose you for good once I do. Just like dad and Gideon."

She pushes herself away from her desk, stepping around and pulling the younger man into a tight hug. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly when he wraps his arms around her waist just as tightly, tears spilling out onto her cheeks. And, even though Spencer easily towers over her, he leans his head on her shoulder and cries softly against her shirt.

"We would never, _ever_ leave you like they did," she whispers thickly. "They made their choice to walk out from your life, but never once in a million years would Emily or I _ever_ do that to you. We _never_ wanted to do that, even if we had no the choice. It's why we both came back."

"I know," he replies hoarsely, sniffling pathetically. "I know you wouldn't."

"It's their loss for voluntarily walking away from you. You're an amazing person, Spence, and I really don't know what I would do if you weren't in my life."

There's a small pause.

"Probably be way less informed about the amount of times the Empire State Building gets struck by lightning each year," he jokes lightly.

She giggles, sniffling with a shake of her head. "Around 25 times," she supplies, wiping off her cheeks with the heels of her hands. "I'm not asking you to forgive me or Emily right away, Spence. I just really miss my nerdy little brother."

"I'm not mad," he admits, looking down once more at his Converse. "I'm really _not_ , I'm just... I need time still."

She nods, pulling away from his hug and rubbing his arm gently, comfortingly. She exhales shakily with a single nod. "Okay."

He shoots her a small, grateful smile before he leaves her office. "Thanks, JJ."

She simply gives another nod in response, chest feeling just a bit lighter.

Spencer no longer ignores her or Emily, begins to laugh again and has a smile that slowly begins to reach his eyes again. He talks with them on the jet rides home and no longer is hostile towards them. He's still tense, still wary, but slowly he begins to come around once again.

JJ comes in the bullpen one morning, jumping back with a small yelp when a paper airplane lands directly in her hair. She plucks the paper from her head with a confused scowl, turning her head when she hears Emily and Derek howling with laughter, Spencer yelp out an apology.

"I can't believe he got you too!" Emily cracks when the blonde walks over to the group.

"Too?" JJ asks curiously with a frown, inspecting the folded paper in her hands.

Derek chortles and ruffles Spencer's hair playfully. "Pretty boy here bonked princess on the head when she came in," he teases.

"It's like the rockets all over again," Emily grumbles, playfully glaring over at Spencer.

The young profiler ducks his head with a sheepish smile. "I was aiming for the trashcan, I swear!"

JJ turns back the way she just walked in, eyeing the trashcan Spencer points out with an impressed hum. "Mine just flop to the ground."

His eyes gleam playfully as he smirks. "It's because you don't fold them right."

JJ rolls his eyes playfully at his tone, smiling as she perches herself on top of the corner of Emily's desk. "Okay, Spence. Teach me how to fold a proper paper airplane. And uh..." She flicks her finger over the bent, pointed top. "Maybe make it less dangerous."

Spencer grins at her, turning and taking two pieces of printer paper from Derek's printer, handing one to JJ. "You got it."

"Oh, now that's not right!" Derek complains. "I asked you how to do it way before she came in and you said no! And now you're using _my_ paper to make her an airplane."

"Scared you can't make a decent paper airplane that'll beat the girls', Morgan?" Emily jabs playfully, focusing on folding an airplane of her own.

"Okay, I do not need either of you to make one for me," Derek says boldly, pointing around at each of them with a finger. "I can make one that will kick all your other planes' asses! Even with JJ cheating by having Reid make her one!"

"Maybe if you were nice, he would fold you one too," JJ retorts, innocently smiling over at the older man while waving the blank piece of paper in front of his nose. "Besides, he's teaching me how to do it. Don't be jealous because I'm learning from a pro."

Derek scoffs, focusing on folding his own piece of paper, muttering playfully under his breath. From beside him, Emily chuckles and shakes her head at his antics, concentrating on diagonally folding her own piece of paper.

"So, what's the first step? What do I got to do first?"

Spencer smiles over at her, setting down his own paper and demonstrating how to fold. JJ looks over at his periodically to make sure her's is similar to the genius's own, hefting it up in one hand when it's assembled.

She loses miserably when they all throw them in the practically empty bullpen, her plane gliding right back onto Emily's desk limply. But she can't even find it in herself to be disappointed or even upset because Spencer is smiling at her and he's talking to her again like he used to and she finally feels like she has her little brother back.

She knows herself and Emily are well and truly forgiven when Spencer openly brags around them for the rest of the day because his airplane is the only one that even made it across the room, let alone in the trash can.

JJ couldn't be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> they filled the coffin with rocks


End file.
